vital

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of life: See Synonyms at living.

adj. Necessary to the continuation of life; life-sustaining: a vital organ; vital nutrients.

adj. Full of life; animated: "The population of the teeming, vital slum . . . declined” ( Rick Hampson).

adj. Imparting life or animation; invigorating: the sun's vital rays.

adj. Necessary to continued existence or effectiveness; essential: "Irrigation was vital to early civilization” ( William H. McNeill). "A vital component of any democracy is a free labor movement” ( Bayard Rustin).

Etymologies

(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin vītālis ("of life, life-giving"), from vīta ("life"), from vīvō ("live"). (Wiktionary)

Examples

The geologic records attest the fact, as well as the ever-acting vital law; and it is enough for us to know, with sturdy old Richard Hooker, that all law -- and especially all _vital_ law -- "has her seat in the bosom of God, and her voice is the harmony of the world."

If I love my mother, it is because there is established between me and her a direct, powerful circuit of vital magnetism, call it what you will, but a direct flow of dynamic _vital_ interchange and intercourse.

But if religion is not consciously vital to the Filipinos, as they themselves would conceive and act on it (and I make the assertion in the assumption that the reader understands as I do by _consciously vital_ that for which the individual or the race is willing to die singly or collectively), the unprejudiced observer must admit that it is vital to their ultimate evolution, vital in just the sense that any function is vital to one who is in need of it.

Maybe the term vital organ also incorporates such things as bone marrow.

Obama says increasing government revenue through tax hikes would prevent the need to cut what he called vital programs such as student loans, medical research and government healthcare for elderly Americans.

I am somewhat startled at what you define as vital dimensions, since to me it seems like you strongly derive them from your own preferences which might be culturally influenced and thus might lead you to have a lower utility from the things on offer in European countries than the average European who will have preferences for other things than those you define as vital.

I don't know if it has anything to do with it, but there had been before, a massive campaign on the part of -- humanitarian groups and aid groups saying how dire the situation would be for the Iraqi population if those facilities, what they call vital facilities, electricity, power plants, water treatment plants, were to be hit.

The Ngobeni commission into allegations that Mpumalanga deputy speaker, Cynthia Maropeng abused her position to enrich herself cancelled its scheduled hearings on Thursday night after receiving what it called vital new evidence.

Words with the same terminal sound

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Comments

And your eyes now often tell meThat your once vital talent to extract joyFrom the airHas fallen into a sleep.- Hafiz, 'The Theatre of Freedom', from 'The Subject Tonight is Love' translated by Daniel Ladinsky.